File credits

This mod was created from scratch but was inspired by Simple Saves by PushTheWinButton. Many thanks to the authors of NVSE and the JIP-LN-NVSE plugin, especially Luthien Anarion for his INI functions.

Creates rotating timed autosaves, avoiding to save during combat-related activity. Configurable through its own Data\Config\SafeAutoSave.ini file. Requires the JIP-LN Plugin.

Timed autosaving mods are useful in removing the “mundane” consideration of saving during playing. I just play the game and make a manual saving before exiting. I have developed such a mod for Skyrim, but for New Vegas I had been using Simple Saves for a year and I was very satisfied with it.

One thing I wanted to improve was to reset the timer after loading a game to avoid having an autosave created shortly after a loading a manual save.

I also wanted to prevent annoying autosaves when my character was in the middle of an action such as firing or aiming, but just like my mod for Skyrim, allow autosaving during combat if it would last too long and my character would be standing still or walking.

I had also discovered in Skyrim that if I prefixed the save file with the word “autosave” the game would display this file as a real autosave. This worked in New Vegas too: You can look at the screenshot to see how autosaves created by this mod appear like normal vanilla autosaves with the AUTO prefix, using the game location of the save instead of a filename.

Another issue I wanted to deal with is that loading an older autosave would cause the rotation to start from that save’s count instead of the last one. Eg. if you load autosave 3 and your last autosave was 5, then your next autosave would overwrite 4 instead of 6. I fixed this problem by storing the count in a config file instead of using a local variable.

Finally, after a short discussion with Cyrus Monroe I decided to implement the autosave expedite hotkey feature of my SafeAutoSave mod for Skyrim: simply hold down the hotkey (default Num+) and an autosave will be issued, resetting the timer. This combines the convenience of quicksaves with the autosave slot rotation/timer system. A short cooldown period ensures that it won’t cause save spamming.

I didn’t wish to create an MCM panel for this mod for reasons outlined at Simple Saves, but since I had a config file available, I’ve placed my settings there. The file is located at Data\Config and it contains a lot of comments to help you edit it yourself.

I have playtested the mod for a month and it worked very well, giving me a minimal list of autosaves along with a single manual save I was overwriting each time I was exiting the game. I uninstalled and re-installed it several times without any issues on my game.

Caveats: This is my first scripted mod for New Vegas. Also it won’t work well for players using multiple accounts on the same computer because the config file is stored in the game folder; Simple Saves is a better alternative in this case.